Wall Street Breakfast Editors submit:
Top Stories
FOMC signals flexibility in asset purchases. One would be hard pressed to point out the differences between Wednesday’s FOMC policy statement and that released in March. There was one new sentence however: “The Committee is prepared to increase or reduce the pace of its purchases to maintain appropriate policy accommodation as the outlook for the labor market or inflation changes.” The consensus seems to be that, taken with unchanged inflation language, the new nod to flexibility tacitly suggests an increase in the size of monthly asset purchases may be on the horizon. Esther George, once again the lone brave hawk amongst a flock of aggressive doves, dissented for the third time in as many meetings.
ECB seen cutting rates. The Fed did its part Wednesday to perpetuate the global monetary easing status quo and the Bank of Japan has gone above and beyond. Now it’s the